OpenAI’s Altman appears to reject Musk’s $97.4B bid for control

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has seemingly knocked back Elon Musk’s $97.4 billion bid to buy out the ChatGPT maker.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a Musk-led group of investors submitted a $97.4 billion bid to OpenAI’s board of directors to buy the nonprofit on Feb. 10. 

Altman responded in a Feb. 10 X post, “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

Musk purchased the platform, now called X, for $44 billion in 2022.

Musk seemingly hit back by sharing a video on X of Altman’s 2023 testimony before Congress, where he told lawmakers that he owns no equity in OpenAI, with the caption “Scam Altman.”

Altman and Musk were co-founders and co-chairs of OpenAI when it launched in 2015 as a nonprofit. Musk’s reported bid comes amid an ongoing feud with Altman over the direction of the artificial intelligence firm as Altman wants to shift the company to a for-profit venture, which Musk disagrees with.

Musk sued OpenAI and Altman in August, claiming they violated promises to operate as a nonprofit. He had originally dropped the lawsuit after OpenAI published several of Musk’s emails from the early days of the firm that appeared to show him conceding that it needed to make money.

Related: OpenAI CEO: Costs to run each level of AI falls 10x every year 

Musk’s reported bid for OpenAI is backed by his AI company xAI, along with a host of venture and investment firms, including Baron Capital, Vy Capital and 8VC.

Musk’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, told the Journal that the group is prepared to match or beat any higher bids.

“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” Toberoff said.

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